Blue-Eyed Boy

You told me never to let my happiness depend on what is not certain
But I was falling so fast
I never realized he was keeping me from hitting the bottom
And boy I found that bottom so fast that I couldn't remember a time
Where love didn't feel like drowning
At first the concavity was merely a cold lake on a sunny August day
And one big dive in was all I needed
But August turned to November
And I was frozen at the bottom
Of what I thought would end in my favor
I blame myself because his hand grabbed mine
Before I took my last breath
To pull me from the bottom of the river
The last time I was down there
And I was stupid enough to believe that he was there to save me
When I have been through it all before
His devil eyes were disguised as a helpless long
That he needed me too
When I now know how far that was from being true
I want to hate him but I can't stop hating myself
For being blind to this game and I wonder if it will ever end
But for now I will wait for another grab at my wrist
That will pull me to the surface
And I will look for his blue eyes inside of this new boy
When he tells me that everything is going to be okay

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Editor’s Note

The number one question our editors receive is—what do the editors and judges look for when judging the contest? The number one answer we give is creativity. Unlike prose, writing composed in everyday language, poetry is considered a creative art and requires a different type of effort and a certain level of depth. Of the thousands of poems entered in each contest, the ones that catch our judges’ eyes are the ones that remove us, even just slightly, from the scope of everyday life by using language that is interesting, specific, vivid, obscure, compelling, figurative, and so on. Oftentimes, poems are pulled aside for a second look based simply on certain words that intrigued the reader. So first and foremost, be sure your poetry is written using creative language. Take general ideas and make them personal. In his infamous book De/Compositions: 101 Good Poems Gone Wrong, W. D. Snodgrass imparts, “We cannot honestly discuss or represent our lives, any more than our poems, without using ideational language.”